Abstract

The effect of temperature on the tensile behavior of the armchair (6, 6) single-walled carbon nanotubes with a Ni-coating (SWCNT-Ni) was investigated using molecular dynamics (MD) methods. The mechanical properties of SWCNT-Ni and SWCNT were calculated and analyzed at different temperatures in the range from 220 K to 1200 K. From the MD results, temperature was determined to be the crucial factor affecting the mechanical properties of SWCNT-Ni and SWCNT. After coating nickel atoms onto the surface of a SWCNT, the Young’s modulus, tensile strength, and tensile failure strain of SWCNT were greatly reduced with temperature rising, indicating that the nickel atoms on the surface of SWCNT degrade its mechanical properties. However, at high temperature, the Young’s modulus of both the SWCNT and the SWCNT-Ni exhibited significantly greater temperature sensitivity than at low temperatures, as the mechanical properties of SWCNT-Ni were primarily dominated by temperature and C-Ni interactions. During these stretching processes at different temperatures, the nickel atoms on the surface of SWCNT-Ni could obtain the amount of energy sufficient to break the C-C bonds as the temperature increases.